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Katoma

Senior Member

Katoma

Senior Member

Joseph Rutakolezibwa Mutahangarwa was born in a chiefly family in Kiziba in the Kagera region. He was the first Tanganyikan to complete the medical course at Makerere in 1940. He arrived in Dar es Salaam in the same year to serve his internship at Sewa Haji Hospital (now Muhimbili National Hospital). His work there was highly regarded and in 1942 he performed the hospital's first major all-African operation.

In April 1942, Mutahangarwa was posted in Shanwa, a remote station in Shinyanga with no railway connection nor telegraph service. This appointment made him the first African Assistant Medical Officer to be in charge of a station in the Tanganyika territory. He managed the hospital with an entirely African Staff. He found however that he had inherited a crisis, an epidemic of cerebrospinal-meningitidis had brocken out during that year. The total number of CSM cases in the following year were in excess of 600 patients and 109 deaths. The CSM epidemic continued through-out his 3.5 year tenure however cases and deaths gradually decreased. A smallpox epidemic erupted in the aread during 1944-1945, and he oversaw the vaccination of 86,604 people in a district with very poor transportation, while at the same time running a 38-bed hospital and an outpatient clinic, and organizing clinical trails of traditional medicines for the treatment of tuberculosis.

Despite Mutahangarwa initial pride and optimism, his years at Shanwa were unhappy. He struggled to manage on his small salary (less than 400 T.Shs a month), was pestered by bureaucrats, drown in paperwork and isolated from other professionals. In 1951 he quit government service and moved to private practise.

Among his contemporaries were the gifted Dr. Francis Mwaisela from Mbeya and Dr. Raymond Kafamba from Kiziba both Makerere Alums.

We honore pioneers in different fields because they paved the way. By the way just been born first does not mean you will be the first to do something. There are many who were born before Mutahangarwa but didn't do what he did.